by WB McKay
Dentist was my go-to nightmare job. Sticking your hands in other people's mouths all day, just to clean them? If I was sticking my hand in someone's mouth, it was to rip out their tongue, not floss their molars.
Of course, if Golden Fleece was a code word, then learning about the golden hair of the ram and the many rumors of the royal power it granted did me absolutely no good whatsoever. It granted royalty. What else did I need to know?
I closed the browser just as I saw the words, and had to reopen and frantically scroll down to find the spot again. There it was.
The last rumored location of the Golden Fleece was Highlander's Point, a pirate haven off the Pacific Coast of the United States.
"Huh." I leaned away from the screen, and then forward again to double check I hadn't made the words up. There they were, on official FAB records.
The pirates were going to the last rumored location of the Golden Fleece.
Apparently, good things came to those who read through pages of useless crap. Patience had its moments.
CHAPTER THREE
Highlander's Point was windy as a pirate's wet dream.
Okay. Maybe I wasn't so sure what got pirates off.
Art was late. Typical Art. He was one of those people too laid back to show up when they said they would. It wasn't even satisfying to yell at him. He was too nice. And not in a fake, I-secretly-hate-you kind of way. He was genuinely kind and laid back and one of those good people who aren't supposed to really exist. They were the kind of person that older people always told younger people to be, but never really expected it because it was too perfect. Yeah, I don't know why he's my friend, either. I used to think he was assigned to me a lot and too busy being nice to realize he actually disliked my company, but I was starting to think he was my friend, not just my work-friend.
I had friends.
The whole navigating-interpersonal-relationships thing was not my strong suit, but I was pretty sure I was correct about that. I had friends. People who didn't only tolerate my company. The weirdness of that wasn't wearing off. It gave me this uncomfortable feeling of awareness, like I needed to pay attention to everything I said and the meaning behind every interaction. I couldn't just live under the weight of all these people tied to me. There was a responsibility to it that I didn't yet understand.
Better to think about pirates. The pirates, it seemed, really thought they were going after the Golden Fleece. I couldn't come up with any evidence it wasn't a code word, so that was still a possibility, but the location pointed to them believing in its existence. Did Mr. Supervillain Extraordinaire believe it was real? That was the big question. Erik Bresnan was smart and calculating. He had many contacts. My experience with his theft of the Scepter of Sight strongly backed that up. If the Golden Fleece was real, he would know. I had to acknowledge there was the possibility, though it felt scary to think like that. It was too exciting. The image of myself holding the Golden Fleece--of bringing it into MOD for everyone to see--was too much. I acknowledged the possibility, but shoved the thought away so it wouldn't consume me.
But it wouldn't be shoved away. That voice in the back of my head thought, I'm going after the Golden Fleece. That voice sounded a lot like a dragon sick with covetousness, hissing from the depths of a cave. That voice needed to stay locked in a box far away from my grabby hands where it wouldn't get me in trouble.
After acknowledging the possibility that I could be going after something so big--something that wasn't even supposed to be real--I also had to acknowledge it had become necessary to call someone else in. I couldn't call in FAB, because even with all I had, it was only speculation against a major player on the council. It was shitty to bring Art into it. If I was caught, well, I couldn't necessarily protect him. I made sure to explain the whole situation to him. Still, when he finally showed up on that rocky, windy, piece of deserted garbage, I made sure to say, "Art, this is a ridiculous thing to get involved in and you should definitely turn around and leave right now."
He shrugged and smiled. "Where do we go?"
I sighed. This was why friends and I were a bad idea. Poor Art. "Underground? To a cave?"
He nodded and looked around us. "Where's that at?"
"Shouldn't selkies be good cave finders?"
He grinned. "What are crows good at?"
"Stealing shiny things," I said. "And getting happy sea lions into trouble, I guess."
He bumped his shoulder against mine. "What's wrong with you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Your face is so serious." He exaggerated his frown. "Did something happen? Is Belinda okay?"
"Belinda's fine," I said. "This is just my face."
"How are you and Owen?"
I grimaced before I could catch myself. Controlling my face was probably my weakest point as an agent. It was even more difficult when I was with Art. His company relaxed it me. It couldn't be healthy.
"What'd he do?"
"He was all…." I didn't know what to say. "It was me."
He nodded like that made sense. He could have pretended it was a surprise, widened his eyes or something. "And you can't make it better because you'd have to apologize and that's not something you do? I met him. I think he might understand how you are."
I backed up a step before shouting over the wind, "How am I?"
"You know who you are," he stated with certainty.
I knew who I was? That was news to me.
"You look confused," he said.
"That is definitely a thing I am."
"Relationships are complicated for all of us," he said sagely.
"They are?"
"They are."
"I… I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
"I want to collect the bad guy's treasure."
"Work, work, work," he said. "That's Sophie. So, where do we go?"
"I was serious about you finding the cave for us. I mean, I don't know it's a cave, to be fair, I only know 'underground', I think."
"Cave sounds likely," he agreed, and then turned to look around. "How many hours until first light?"
"Five," I said. "But they're meeting here an hour before that to get into position."
"An hour suggests they know where to go," he observed.
"Agreed."
"Sure would be nice if we did."
"Make it happen, Agent Fisk."
He leaned around the boulder closest to him and pinched his lips to the side. We were basically on a small peninsula that appeared to be one large, black rock, covered in smaller black rocks. Art wandered off for fifteen minutes in a northerly direction so I went to the south. He circled back with the same "what now?" expression on his face. "So," he said. "What now?"
"Keep looking," I said.
"I don't know what you expect me to look at," he said. "Are you sure you don't have any clues you're forgetting to tell me about?"
"Underground, but somehow 'first light' matters. That's my clue. It has to be here."
"Maybe it was pirate slang," he suggested.
"For what?"
"I don't know," he said. "I can only think of one thing cave would be slang for, but maybe something else they said was slang and that was the clue."
"And maybe sprites will appear and show us the way," I said. "Until that happens, I say we keep looking. Now, let's start at the glamour barrier. I'll take the south point, you take the north, and we'll move west as we go. When we finish that, we'll switch."
He saluted me. We split up, walked the length of it to the water's edge, switched positions, and made our way back. When we returned to the barrier, we strolled out over the rocky land together, milling about without any real direction.
I groaned. Loudly. I was losing my patience, if I ever had any. "It has to be here!" There was no other Highlander's Point. They'd said it clear as day. And yet, I felt no magic beyond the glamour. I saw nowhere else to look. We were stuck.
"For the record, this
sounded a lot more exciting and dangerous when you asked me to join you."
"Doesn't it always?"
"Don't think I've forgiven you for involving yourself in a car chase without me," he said.
"I know."
"You know I love car chases."
"I know," I said. "I swear, it didn't feel awesome at the time. Also, I didn't expect the car chase."
"That's the best thing about them," he said. "I never get assigned cases with car chases. These days Hammond can go months without assigning me a single case on land."
"Maybe you should get a boat," I suggested. "Then you could be in a boat chase."
"You know I don't have that kind of luck." He stuffed his hands in his bulky jacket. "I think I'll need a pesky crow involved for something like that to be useful."
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" He'd been called in to lead the case when my sister had been murdered, but we'd still barely seen each other at the time. Before that, I wasn't sure when we'd last worked a tough case together.
"Too long," he agreed.
"I'll make a point of bothering you once this is over."
"Sounds like a plan."
I kicked one of the rocks. The boulders came up to my chest. "Assuming this is ever over," I said. "Might spend the rest of my life kicking rocks around in search of a cave that doesn't exist."
He patted me on the back. "You fly over and do another pass. I'm going to flood the ground with water."
"You think that'll do something?"
"Water finds a way," he said.
I shrugged, nothing to lose. I flew one pass high over the land and a second lower down. All the while, Art shot blasts of water and patiently watched where the water went.
Nothing.
"Water didn't find a way," I said.
"Perhaps there's no way to find," he said.
"But there is," I whined.
"The water disagrees." He patted me on the shoulder again, doing nothing but pissing me off. I glared at him. He laughed. "I have one more idea. I'm going to shift and hop in, see what I find on the water's edge."
"The glamour barely extends out there," I said.
"I know. I didn't say it was promising, but I'll check it out. Give me an hour or so."
"We have two," I said. I didn't feel the need to add "and no more ideas if that doesn't work out, so take your time". He knew the score. If we didn't find it before the pirates got there, we'd be following them into the underground and trying our best to keep up. It was a horrible plan. It required letting them lead us all the way there. They'd likely get their hands on the object before we did, and then we'd be forced to confront them to confiscate something we weren't even sure we had the right to take--no evidence of what it was, what it did, or that it was in our jurisdiction--all without prior MOD approval. "Not ideal" was a light way of putting it.
Art returned thirty minutes later with a shrug.
The plan was not ideal. It wasn't the first time "not ideal" would be all I had, and it wouldn't be the last.
CHAPTER FOUR
The pirates were late, surprising no one, irritating the piss out of me.
Their dinghy zipped through the water, bouncing dangerously over the waves. I had a taste for speed and dangerous antics, but I was more careful on the water. Yes, I surfed, but I respected that the ocean could kill me when it wanted to. I'd have slowed my dinghy for the waves. Come to think of it, their small, rubber, motorized dinghy ticked me off. If you were going to be a pirate and wear such classic clichés as the soft leather boots and hat and tattered vest, using the whole persona as an excuse to be drunk and sloppy and dangerous, then you should have to row the classic wooden boat to get yourself to shore.
"Have some standards," I muttered.
Art glanced at me, his lips a tight line to contain his amusement. We were hidden behind one of the boulders, a larger one at our backs. He didn't ask what I meant. We were trying to be stealthy; stealthy people didn't gripe while spying on pirates, and they didn't ask questions about other people's griping. I rolled my eyes to convey I was sorry, but not really. He shook his head at me to convey I was an unstoppable force of witty brilliance. We'd known each other a lot of years, I was clearly qualified to translate his gestures.
Tattered Vest sat in the boat while her companion positioned the dinghy. I'd never read her as being an entitled lazy jerk, but the way she stayed stock still until they were securely on land, never lifting a finger to help, certainly implied that to be the case.
Art tensed. I followed his narrowed gaze to Tattered Vest's companion. I vaguely recognized the fae. She was one of the quieter ones of the group. I thought she'd been at The Hairy Barnacle the night before, but I couldn't be sure. My head turned from her, back to Art, back to her, until I put the pieces together. "Selkie," I mouthed. He gave a tight nod. I tilted my head to ask Do you know her? He shook his head. That wasn't the problem. It took me another minute of thought to put together he was offended by the idea of a selkie becoming a pirate at all. I nodded while I ran this idea over in my head, letting it coalesce with what I knew of Art and selkies. Selkies, like many close-knit and largely isolated groups, were full of pride. They stayed with their pods their whole lives. They took care of each other. They prided themselves on their way of life, and while I didn't know much about the selkie way of life, I knew enough about Art to suspect it didn't involve theft. A selkie joining the ranks of pirates must have felt like a negative representation of selkies to him.
I'd never exactly had a group like that to pride myself on. I was part of MOD, but my idea of what a good agent should be wasn't hurt by the reality of bad agents. I didn't feel like bad agents stole something from my own image of myself or the organization I worked for. I'd grown up with my sisters, who were all banshees, but banshees weren't prone to giving two fucks what others thought of them. "Pride of the banshees" wasn't a phrase I'd ever expect to hear. Similarly, Art's glower at a stranger wasn't something I'd ever expected to see on his easygoing face.
As fascinating as the change in Art was, and as boring as the pirates current actions were, I refocused my attention where it was most needed. The selkie waited for Tattered Vest to take the lead. Tattered Vest stepped out of the boat and looked around like she was waiting for something. She took several tentative steps forward, squinting as she searched the rocky plain. Finally, she turned back to her companion, hands on her hips, and said, "Well, where do we go?"
"What?" the selkie asked. "I've never been here."
"We're going underground. Find a way."
"Find it where? I don't see anything."
"Well, there is something." She shooed the selkie on to her search with a gesture of her hands.
"Why me? I don't know what I'm looking for."
"You're a selkie," said Tattered Vest. "You know this kind of terrain."
The selkie shot a stream of water into Tattered Vest's face. "I'm a selkie," she said, while Tattered Vest sputtered and spit. "We're known for surprising moments."
Art's frown became a proud grin.
"Fair enough," ground out Tattered Vest. "But we still have to find the way. It's probably a cave or something. Help me look."
The selkie grunted assent and the two of them spread out as their meandering efforts took them over the rocks. Clearly, neither of them expected a cave to jump out and bite them, and yet, their efforts were lazy. They didn't even ask what was with all the magic Art had sprayed over the island. I could still smell it--anyone paying attention should have. Their efforts suggested they hadn't considered the cave could be glamoured and hiding right in front of them. I did better than this, I thought. As much as I needed them to find it, I felt irrationally angry at the idea of these pirates finding it when I hadn't.
Except, they didn't.
"Maybe you'll need to ask The Boss again?" the selkie suggested when they convened mere yards from our hiding place.
"And tell him what? That he has to be wrong because there's no cave here? You try tel
ling him he's wrong about something. Let me know how that goes for you."
Shit. Fuck. Damn. No. They were giving up. They didn't know. I'd been counting on the idea that Mr. Supervillain knew things. That he hired competent criminals. That he'd so thoroughly outsmarted me at every turn with the Scepter of Sight and there was no way there were hitches in his plans. That today I would--finally--make some ounce of progress in my investigation.
No. No. No.
"We have to search again," Tattered Vest said. "We'll have to bring the whole crew out here."
What? No. No. No.
"But you said only two people and that we had to be inside the cave at first light and--"
"I know what I said," Tattered Vest snapped. "We have to do what we can and right now that is finding the cave."
"Fine. What first?"
"Follow the wall of the glamour to see if we spot any cracks, make our way back to the water, and if we haven't found anything, send up the signal for the rest of the crew."
Art's wide eyes met mine. We couldn't leave with the rest of the crew coming in case they found the cave and then recovered the treasure, but we couldn't exactly stay where we were with a full pirate crew coming. I didn't know how to find it without them. MOD wasn't in the loop.
As it turned out, there wasn't any time to make a plan. The selkie touched Tattered Vest's arm and said, "Hold on," and I knew. Art looked at me--he knew, too. She'd finally scented Art's magic, or perhaps my shifts from earlier. Honestly, it was a bit of a relief. I hated to think they were this clueless.